Category: Metaphilosophy
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The Existential versus the Merely Theoretical: Some Responses to a Reader
A young Brazilian reader, Vini, refers to an article of mine, Retorsion Revisited: How Far Does it Reach and What Does it Prove? and asks me some questions about it. He is clearly one of those whose interest in philosophy is deeply existential and not merely theoretical or academic. ‘Existential’ has several meanings both inside…
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The Concept of Standoff in Philosophy
Substack latest. A second example: 3. God by his very nature as divine is a concrete being who exists of metaphysical necessity. 4. Nothing concrete could exist of metaphysical necessity. By ‘concrete’ I mean causally active/passive. The God in question is not a causally inert abstract object like a number or a set-theoretical set. Clearly,…
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Solubility Skepticism, Religion, and Reason
Stack topper. Here are four addenda to what I say in the Substack entry. 1) A skeptic is an inquirer, not a denier. Too many confuse doubt, the engine of inquiry, with denial. If I doubt that such-and-such, I neither affirm it nor deny it. 2) Is doubting whether a proposition is true the same…
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The Philosopher
A philosopher is one sensitive to the strangeness of the ordinary, and open to the puzzles hidden in platitudes.
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Philosophy and Science: Continuity or Discontinuity? Presentism Meets Physics
Malcolm Pollack writes, I hope you'll forgive me for hammering you with emails, but I just wanted to thank you for inviting me to join you in giving this paper a careful going-over. [Christian Wuetrich, "The Fate of Presentism in Modern Physics" in New Papers on the Present, Philosophia Verlag, 2013, 91-131. ] It…
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John Gardner on Fiction and Philosophy
Top o' the Stack. I spent an intense and enjoyable five hours with Steven Nemes on Saturday. He's had it with philosophy and theology and is in process of reinventing himself as a novelist. So this one's for him.
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From the Mail Bag: Old-Time Reader Swims the Tiber
This just in from Russell B.: Long time no talk. I hope you’re doing well. I have been thinking about your work on existence over the past 3-4 years very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it has made me swim the Tiber (well, I was born and raised Catholic so did I actually leave?).…
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On Writing Philosophy
One writes the hard-core stuff with no assurance that one will be read, except by a few. And these few cannot be expected to read with much care and almost certainly not with the care the author expended in writing. And of the those who read with care, only a few of them will actually…
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Disagreement in Philosophy: Notes on Jiří Fuchs
That philosophers disagree is a fact about which there is little disagreement, even among philosophers. But what this widespread and deep disagreement signifies is a topic of major disagreement. One issue is whether or not the fact of disagreement supplies a good reason to doubt the possibility of philosophical knowledge. The contemporary Czech philosopher…
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When Politics Becomes Like Philosophy
Trouble's on the way, as I explain over at Substack.
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Reader Requests Advice re: Learning Basics of Philosophical Argumentation
A New Zealand reader writes, I was hoping if you are able to provide me with some guidance regarding where to begin learning the basics of philosophical arguments. I’ve been trying to understand how to evaluate political and theological debates for awhile, but despite my interest I often find them go away over my…
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Why the Collapse of Philosophical Studies in the Islamic World?
Leo Strauss sketches an answer in his "How to Begin to Study Medieval Philosophy" in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed. T. L. Pangle, University of Chicago Press, 1989, pp. 221-222, bolding added: For the Jew and the Moslem, religion is primarily not, as it is for the Christian, a faith formulated in dogmas, but a…
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The Idea of Inevitable Progress versus Archaism
Philosophers and theologians alike should heed a distinction I found in Henri de Lubac's magisterial The Mystery of the Supernatural (Herder and Herder, 2001, originally published in French in 1965, p. 18): Lastly, returning to the essence of an older position can never be purely and simply a return. Archaism . . . of this…
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Reading Now: Karl Barth, Henri Bouillard, Erich Przywara
'Now' above refers to March 2003. Tempus fugit! This unfinished post has been languishing in storage and now wants to see the light of day. Fiat lux! ……………………………………. I'm on a bit of theological jag at present. The updating of my SEP divine simplicity entry has occasioned my review of recent literature on modal collapse…
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A Reason Why We Need Philosophy
You have heard it said, "Take the bull by the horns." But I say unto you, "Take the bull by the shovel." Enjoy this Substack entry wherein I take some journalistic bull by the shovel.